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Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) and Mithun have announced they are collaborating on a new student housing project for the University of California, Santa Barbara (USCB). The two-phase project will deliver accommodations for 4,000 students by 2029, led by the new 2,140-bed San Benito complex... View full entry
Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) is progressing towards the completion of its new 600 W. 125th Street off-campus Harlem housing project for Columbia University in collaboration with CetraRuddy. Once complete, the 34-story dorm is set to host 142 apartments for graduate students and... View full entry
Charles Munger, the billionaire investor whose proposed design for a monolithic, partly windowless dormitory at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) was the subject of a public controversy that drew critical ire and the eyes of outside media, passed away yesterday at his home in... View full entry
TenBerke has finished work on its two-hall dormitory project for Brown University. The Brook Street Residence Halls project is part of the university’s plan to expand its on-campus housing offerings and was completed using a hybrid steel and cross-laminated timber structure. Brown says... View full entry
In late October 2023, the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) embarked on a new phase in its quest for expanded student housing. As reported by The Santa Barbara Independent, Vice Chancellor Garry MacPherson announced the selection of two architectural firms to develop housing for... View full entry
Charles Munger is back in the news after some insensitive comments made over the weekend re-entered the debate over windowless dormitories and student housing scarcity nationwide. Yahoo! Finance is reporting on comments the would-be billionaire designer of the derided and then dropped... View full entry
[The] quintessential local issue of zoning squabbles ends up generating a national scarcity of elite college admissions slots, fueling zero-sum competition and ultimately reducing America’s ability to increase global “exports” of its best-in-class high-end higher education product. — The Washington Post
The Washington Post has a useful primer on the zoning hangnail stimying elite American higher-ed institutions from expanding their enrollment in response to societal outcries and prospective applicants' increasingly high standardized test scores. The issue dates to the mid-1990s when... View full entry
Appearing to substantiate reports that UCSB’s controversial Munger Hall proposal has been scrapped, the university issued a formal “request for qualifications” this week for architectural firms to design a new student housing project at the same campus location previously reserved for Munger Hall. — Santa Barbara Independent
After Santa Barbara Independent Executive Editor Nick Welsh hinted at the end of the infamous "Dormzilla" student housing plan in a scathing editorial in mid-July, UC Santa Barbara's recently published RFQ for the "construction of the UCSB Student Housing Infill and Redevelopment Project" at the... View full entry
TenBerke has announced a new dormitory project for the University of Washington in Seattle co-led with local mainstays Mahlum Architects, a leader in green building design. The scope of the new Haggett Hall project encompasses a 200,000-square-foot residential hall with 800 beds and a... View full entry
In preparation for the Fall 2023 academic term, Brown University shares details of its new Deborah Berke Partners-designed Brook Street Residence Halls. Located at the southeastern edge of the University’s 143-acre historic urban campus, the 125,00-square-foot development has room for... View full entry
The University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) in British Columbia has selected Canadian firms DIALOG and Group2 to design and the construction companies Clark Builders and Turner to build a six-story, CAD $73 million (USD $54 million) mass timber student housing building... View full entry
A new independent review produced by a 13-member panel made up of faculty and community members at the University of California, Santa Barbara has outlined a host of health and safety risks inherent in the contested Munger Hall megadorm design proposal. The report cited the need for Covid-safe... View full entry
A new report from the industry group RealPage indicates the extent to which the pandemic and certain societal trends related to higher education have impacted construction starts on private student housing developments nationwide. The 175-school survey showed overall construction is now in a lag... View full entry
In an amazing rebuke of their university’s purblind pursuit of the Munger Hall megadormitory project last week, students at the University of California, Santa Barbara staged a public forum in order to showcase research-based alternatives to the development and long-term strategic plan. Led by... View full entry
For many students, the nostalgic stereotype of sharinga utilitarian dorm with a new roommate or splitting a cheap off-campus apartment is an unattainable scenario.
According to a 2020 report from UCLA, 1 in 5 community college students, 1 in 10 California State University students, and 1 in 20 University of California students experienced homelessness that year.
— Bloomberg
California, which has become ground zero for the affordable housing crisis in America, has been boosting college enrollment (with some exceptions) resulting in separate 16,000-person-long waitlists across two systems for available space in dorm facilities which have added some 35,000 beds since... View full entry